ium, mucus, soda and phosphates. H'm! Your pardon, gentlemen, for
this digression, but to have sustained a stab under this very roof from
_genus homo_! It is indeed hard."

Here Jenkins, who had been lingering and busying himself about the
apartment, whispered to me from behind:

"It's that dago, sir, that delivers fruit every day."

"Eh?"

"That's the name. I see him going back every morning."

Jenkins moved off, nodding mysteriously, as I stared at him through my
glass. In his way, Billings was speaking words of comfort and all that
sort of thing to the professor.

"Never mind; the law will get 'em for you," he reassured him.

"Ah! that's just where you are in error," sighed our guest. "The law,
sir, will not get a single subject for me. In this age of unrestrained
liberty of all classes, the law lends no aid whatever to science. It is
not as it was in the glorious past when, under imperial patronage,
Vesalius, the great father of anatomy, was protected when by mistake his
scalpel cut the living heart of a Spanish grandee. Times worth while,
gentlemen, those great days of supreme imperialism! Ah! there was no
lack of material available if one stood in a little at court; one had
only to designate a selection and the thing was done. Gracious, gentle
times, my friends! Gone, alas, for ever! Such opportunities are
impossible under a republic."

The professor shook his head and reached for his handkerchief again. But
this time he only blew his nose.

"_Tempora mutantur_," he murmured regretfully, "Eh, gentlemen?"

"True," said Billings, pursing his lips. "Ah, how true!"

"By Jove, ought to be something done, you know," I declared.

"Out of millions, not a single human specimen available," groaned the
professor dismally. "And my instruments ready for over a year."

"Cheer up, sir; you'll have a go yet," Billings encouraged.

"Ah!" The professor's little eyes swept Billings' person critically.
"Perhaps you, sir, would like the privilege--"

Billings staggered back a step or two precipitately.

"Delighted; nothing'd give me greater pleasure, but so infernally busy,"
he explained hurriedly. "Just my confounded luck; unfortunately, got to
go to Egypt right away--probably to-morrow morning."

The professor sighed again in his disappointment.

"No matter; I shall find some one in time," he said grimly. "But I shall
abandon this foolish persuasion and cajolery as unworthy of the
scientist. Do we lower ourselve